Balancing our purposes;

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In the nearly two years since I became managing partner
of Haskins & Sells, I have visited many of our practice
offices and have attended or addressed a good number of
meetings. In the course of these visits and meetings I
have met personally many of the people in our Firm, and
have discussed with them some of the matters
that are on their minds.
The subject which tends to recur most frequently in
these discussions, if it could be reduced to one short
statement, is the difficulty of ordering our priorities,
of balancing our purposes. Most of us work hard in pursuit
of several objectives. We often find ourselves so busy
that we wonder where we can find the time to go after all
of them. None of us wants to give up any of these goals,
because each one draws us and has meaning for us.
We all know the common saying that,"You can't have it
both ways. "This is true only in a limited sense; you
cannot have two things that are in absolute contradiction
to one another, like being both a winning jockey and
heavyweight boxing champion of the world. But we do try,
and we try very hard and often, to reach two or more
objectives that are difficult to attain together. We do
this because we genuinely, deeply desire them, and we are
reluctant to sacrifice one for the other since
they both are important to us.
We all have many needs to satisfy and goals to achieve —
our careers, rewarding family relationships, contributions
to our profession and our community, mental and physical
stimulation and recreation. Think, for example, of
the number of people you know who want to be successful
in a professional field, such as public accounting, and
who also want to be active in the affairs of their
profession or community. This is as it should be, for
all of us need to be concerned about the advancement of
our profession and our community. Further, an individual
grows professionally and personally as he gives of
himself to such activities.
There need be no great problem here if there is a
proper degree of perspective and reasonably effective
planning and utilization of time. Of course there will be
conflicts. There may be a Firm meeting that one must
attend away from his home city at the very time he should
be at an important meeting of the school board on which he
is serving, or the town planning committee, or whatever
it is. These things happen to almost all of us. And they
happen most to those people whose abilities are widely
recognized and who are therefore asked most frequently
to serve on committees, or to deliver reports, or to
hold office in organizations.
Now, add another purpose, or objective, to the situation
— that of the promises we make to our own families.
It is no accident that so many novels and movies center
on the conflict between the pulls within the home and
family, and those outside. This is a reality of life as
we are living today in our hyperactive society.
Add just one more kind of purpose —our need for
recreation. We all have leisure time activities that we
enjoy, and we pursue them for exercise, for relaxation,
and for just plain getting our minds away from the
concerns of our work. These activities may be as varied as
reading mysteries, attending concerts, playing golf or
gardening, but they all center on our need to unwind
and to enjoy ourselves for a while if we are to
keep our health and our good humor.
As I write these words, I am keenly aware of conflicting
pressures for one's time. It is a weekend afternoon, and
an unusually beautiful and mild winter afternoon. The
attraction of outdoor activity is compelling. There is, too,
the usual briefcase full of reading matter and
"to do" files from the office, to say nothing of books and
magazines waiting to be read. To add to the list of things
which might or must be done, there is a fund-raising
presentation to be prepared for a non-profit organization
and a meeting to be attended later in the day. I suppose
that the reason I am doing what I am at this moment is
because this task has the severest deadline. On the other
hand, it could also be the one that appeals to me the most.
No one needs to be told how frequently these various
purposes in life pull against one another. Because time
is limited we cannot pursue them all as much as we would
like. There are times when one must be subordinated to
another, and at times we try to split the difference.
There are occasions when we are tempted to spread
ourselves too thin, and we wind up regretting that we
took on too much, and did a poor job as a consequence.
Everyone has memories of a meeting missed, a report that
might have been prepared more thoroughly, an appointment
for which he arrived embarrassingly late, or a family
affair that was sacrificed to business, or other necessity.
Family affairs remind me of a conversation I overheard
on a train a few weeks ago between two young men from
the financial district of New York. One was bemoaning
the train's running late; a dinner at home celebrating his
wife's birthday was scheduled for seven o'clock so that he
could make an eight o'clock paddle tennis tournament.
I wondered about his priorities, but then it occurred to
me that maybe his wife liked to play paddle tennis too.
And at least he was going to be home for the occasion,
By Michael N. Chetkovich